QQQ1970: Marklin has not yet produced that model. A suitable model was produced by Roco as a "Gueterzugbegleitwagen" (=caboose). It has the correct era 3 color (dark green), although not the respective lettering. But you wouldn't notice once a few feet away... I have added two (Fleischmann and Brawa) green covered vans, a gondola to carry the coal and a tank wagon for water to complete the train. My favorite locomotive is either the BR 94 (Maerklin) or BR 82 (Piko) tank loco.

I was afraid that you wold ask for the model numbers... I took the cars from my collection, and I don't have a system to remember their catalog numbers, but it turned out to be much easier than I thought, using google...

So, here are the part numbers:1. Crew car: DB caboose, Roco 469712. 3 box cars in DB green (called "bottle green" used on maintenance cars during DB era 3 and early era 4): 1 x Brawa 49024 (this one is an early era 4, i.e. it's green is a little to light), 1 x Fleischmann from construction train set 535 203, 1 x from Maerklin Ardelt crane set. These are all box cars type G10 "Stettin", which were converted to construction train use3. crane and flat car for the boom, Maerklin Ardelt crane set4. tank car: One would need to have a dedicated water tank car. Best would be an old locomotive tender (which would also carry the coal), which I don't have (I might try to build one). But a tank car will do fine. These were converted from commercial tank cars and would have DB maintenance numbers. I didn't have that type in my collection, so I used the Brawa 48881, a fuel tanker for the VTG tank car company. You want to make certain that they don't have any advertising painted on them.5. coal gondola: My thought was that the crane won't need a lot of coal, so I chose a small car, e.g. a type O 02 Schwerin or O 11 Nuernberg from the Maerklin 46026 or 46030 sets.

When moving to the work site, the order in the train would be to have the crane likely at the end, all the cars at the other end with the tank and coal cars next to the crane.

The crane would then be separated and moved to the site, which will be prepared by placing the stacks of sleepers for the outriggers at the appropriate locations.

The text is in German, but you get a good idea how the train might look like. You will notice that my train is somewhat on the short side...

www.eisenbahndienstfahrzeuge.de is a website that lists all types of maintenance and construction equipment. Because of the wealth of material, there is no search function, though. Crane in German is "Kran", you find the Ardelt crane by looking for "Krupp Ardelt". This type of crane had a lifting capacity of 57 metric tons, and would typically be used for the construction of bridges and other repair in postwar Germany. There are pictures how two of them would lift a pre-fabricated bridge into place.

'hope this helps and is of interest!

...I just saw your other questions come in: - tilting of the support flat car: I have notices that the crane itself (because of its pick-up shoe?) has a lot of driving resistance. Thus, I couple the crane close to the loco, followed by the cars. That avoids the cars being lifted from the track if the crane is at the end.- high rotation speed: I have also found that speed to be too high, I have not found a way to adjust it. It is a bit of hit and miss to completely center the boom, but doesn't matter much if the pin finds its hole. I have had success to lower the boom with the housing nearly centered, and I then "wiggle" the housing a little left and right to fully insert the pin (no need to use your hand, this can be done with the crane's motor). Once that is done, I have not had problems in turns or even S-turns between 24611/12.

- in your pictures, I see that your large crane hook is still hanging in the air and is not resting on the flat car. It seems to make a difference if the hook is fully resting (with a little bit of cable slack) on the car and if the boom cables also have some slack. Having the hook hang in the air and the boom cable still under tension seems to restrict the boom when turning.

How to make cable slack? I guess for the hook I should not raise the hook all the way to the top and fully resting on the flat car, but how to make slack on boom cable?

I test run the crane back and forth with hand over turnouts. I suspect there is a manufacturing tolerance defect in the boom swivel mechanism that makes swiveling to the left easier than the right. Hard to explain and need to take photos.

you allow the motor that operates the cable drum to run a little longer than needed* - don't immediately stop when the boom reaches the resting cradle. Same with the cable for the hook. I usually let it hang 5 mm (1/4 inch) underneath the boom when I put the boom down. If the hook is directly under the boom when the boom is still up (two inches or so), the hook will be tight when you settle the boom into the cradle. When "slacking" the cable, just don't overdo it...

*one thing you might have noticed: It is always difficult to remember which turn direction on your controller (I use the CS2) lifts the hook or the boom, which direction lowers it when I haven't used it for a while...

I just got back up from the basement: The Piko BR 82 was able to pull the crane train all the way through all turns and curves with the crane at the end of the train and the boom car even between the locomotive and the crane, i.e. the "most likely" to derail if the crane causes too much friction. If the cables are too tight, I was able to reproduce the same derailing of the flat car that you photographed. During my testing, the boom was "somewhat" turned to the right when looking from the housing. I also noticed that the Maerklin BR V36 Dieselloco had some problems pulling the train up a little incline (I had never done that before), i.e. it may be too weak for this train and its somewhat rigid bogey.

Sorry for the delay in answering, but I took my crane train out onto the rack and did some testing tonight.

The results were that the crane and its train negotiate the R1 curves and 24611/12 S-switches and curved switches and other combinations I can throw at it if pulled, in bot directions (loco - cars - crane - boom car - cars; loco - cars - boom car - crane - cars) without problems. All cars have Maerklin short-couplers.

The results were not as consistent when pushing the crane. Previously, I probably had unconsciously avoided the more challenging track combinations. The train would pass R1 curves and 24611/12 S turns if there is sufficient track leading up to it without switches. If a series of switches has to be passed, especially curved switches, it is a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes it passes, sometimes it derails at the same location it has passed before.

The chances of passing are higher, and I get consistent "passing grades", if I drive slow. If nothing else, try to minimize the amount of time you have to push the train when moving to the worksite - something that would be more realistic, anyway. The train is pulled to the worksite, the cars are uncoupled, and just the crane (even without the boom car) is shunted to the worksite.

I haven't spend much time on the why, but it may be due to a loose coupler of the boom car that moves up and down, leading to a less stiff joint. As a result, the boom car pushes the next car with its buffer (and not the coupler) - although prototypical, this may cause it to lever it from the track. You will have noticed that the boom car has somewhat larger buffer disks - perhaps intentionally?...

I noticed that the couplers of the boom car move up and down, which is unusual, likely because the car's under-frame does not fit well with the top. Perhaps because its metal weight is a bit tall, preventing the top from fully seating. I actually got better results when I removed the metal weight and drove without it.

I will do a bit more testing this weekend and try to minimize how much the couplers can move up and down. I will report back what I find...

Sorry for the delay in answering, but I took my crane train out onto the rack and did some testing tonight.

Thanks for the more detailed information. If it handles being pulled through my tighter layout sections I can certainly deal with some issues when it is pushed, which I anticipate I will do a lot less frequently. I expect to eventually create a place for it to sit on my layout and show off its tricks where it will spend a lot of its time.

Looking forward to more information on this subject.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

In my last post, I had written that the reason for the derailing when pushing the crane might be that the coupler has too much vertical play. I was able to confirm that. When I unclipped the top of the boom car from its frame, I noticed that the "dovetail" that guides the coupler had too much room to move up from its slot at the tail end. This led to the vertical movement of the coupler, which in turns caused the derailing when the car was "levered" from the tracks.

I added a small piece of cardboard on top of the dovetail, and now the coupler can no longer slip from its guidance pocket. An extensive test run on my tracks was successful. But before I post instructions, I want to play around some more with ideas to perhaps improve. I have also posted a question on Stummi to see if someone has had similar experiences. And I will also approach Maerklin, but will need some more data before I do so.

Thanks Phascolarctos for all your extensive tests and advice. I am sure this helps all current Dampfkran owners, future and prospect owners who are interested in this beautiful and highly engineered item.

I have changed the post title to reflect the evolving discussion.

First, it is unfortunate to report my crane cable unspooled over the weekend and is back at the dealer for repairs (I am not a handy man and have no skill to respool the cable myself).

I can attest that adding slack at the resting position gives the boom more leeway at swiveling to either side and helps prevent the boom car from tilting on the track. The key of course is not slacking the cable too much.

What I found was my crane had a defect ex factory, which I would characterize as manufacturing tolerance issue. Sorry I didn't take a photo to illustrate. In short, as Phascolarctos mentioned in his other post, the boom and the crane housing are two separate pieces and not rigidly fixed. Instead the boom has a pin on both sides of boom base that can slide along a hidden groove behind a panel (highlighted in blue) on the crane housing that allows the boom to turn, which is necessary as the boom is otherwise anchored and fixed to the boom center pin, unlike the Goliath crane which can sway on the boom car support on curves. For this reason the Ardelt crane boom does not have same load bearing capacity like the Goliath crane, and that may explain why Marklin does not advertise its load capacity.

Long story short, the plastic boom base pin on one side has an extruded burr from the molding process. It is almost unnoticeable by naked eye but on tight curves when the pin comes out from the highlighted panel it cannot slide back in because of manufacturing tolerance. The boom is forced in the center position by the boom car pin, and will be out of center alignment if subsequently raised and leaves the resting support. As Phascolarctos mentioned, the Ardelt crane needs some cable slack to allow boom play on curves, but over multiple left-right turns when the boom is effectively stuck, more cable slack results over time and eventually the cable becomes unspooled. This is a major issue as it severely restricts operations on curves and turnouts, and an unspooled crane is effectively a dead crane.

I took the crane back to the dealer. He is well aware of the issues and is trying to fix this for me. I guess using fine grit sandpaper to smooth out the burr (after respooling the cable in the first place) should solve the problem.

Don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting the Marklin Ardelt crane has a flawed design or is prone to break down on normal operations. I do encourage to-be owners to inspect the boom base pins and check the boom can turn smoothly on both sides before taking delivery. Prospect owners should pick up the crane at a brick and mortar dealer if possible to avoid disappointment. After all, the Marklin Ardelt crane is not just another tried and proven locomotive, but a highly engineered model that warrants inspection before taking delivery. I test ran the crane with the dealer principal on various curves and turnouts and all functions for a good 90 minutes, but this is a new tooling and neither of us understood the intricacies inherent to the model design.

We all want to enjoy the crane, but no one wants to take home a lemon crane and becomes cranky.

I can see that I will need to approach its use carefully and take the time to learn how it operates and how to avoid issues with it. That would be unacceptable in a series production loco but seems a lot more reasonable in a special item like this. I do know that I really want to avoid unspooling the cables, because it can't be a lot of fun to fix that problem and there are no brick and mortar options available to me, so I am mostly my own service department.

Did your problem happen just by moving your crane around your layout, which caused excessive cable slack and then the slack caused the cable to unspool?

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

In an honest self reflecting post-mortem, I would say it is a bit of moving the crane around the layout (with successive turns slacking the cable more as the boom base mount is stuck and no longer sway with the turns), and possibly slacking the cable too much in the first place. Of course, I have no idea how much cable slack is needed in the first place, and the manual makes no mention it needs to be slacked. I suspect if the boom base mount swivel smoothly, then bare minimum slack is all it needs and there should be no additional slack on successive turns if the boom sways with the curve.

Of course, I have no idea how much cable slack is needed in the first place, and the manual makes no mention it needs to be slacked. I suspect if the boom base mount swivel smoothly, then bare minimum slack is all it needs and there should be no additional slack on successive turns if the boom sways with the curve.

Thanks for you honest appraisal - no one likes to admit that their MRR problems were caused by their own actions, although when I look back I can often see where I went wrong. As usual it would be helpful if Märklin shared more detailed usage suggestions but I am not holding my breath. I emailed the NA digital folks about exactly what those CVs do but so far I have not gotten an answer.

I am still waiting for my crane but I am guessing that some small initial cable slack will allow the boom to move freely as long as the base swivel can move as intended. It does not sound like your crane boom is currently doing that but it also seems like a fairly easy thing to fix. Hopefully your dealer can sort that out without a long service visit to Germany.

I had an entire train picked out for the Goliath crane which I did not end up buying. This discussion will hopefully lead me to figuring out what loco and cars might best accompany the basic three unit crane set.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

I doubt Marklin would recommend cable slack to ensure smooth turning on curves as it exposes them to potential warranty / legal issues when customers have their crane cable unspooled. If you download the manual on their website, you will see the picture suggests cable fully tensioned before transporting the crane.

My dealer principal is a handy man and I have faith he can figure this out. I guess in some way it is good opportunity for him to take the crane apart and learn the innards so he can impart that knowledge to other customers.

A while ago I asked what loco to pull the crane and someone posted an archive photo of DB Class 50. I happen to have an old 3084 digitized, and am trying to replicate the archive train consist. For now I use a Thunderbox as crew car but eventually want to find a proper crew car for the crane set.

A while ago I asked what loco to pull the crane and someone posted an archive photo of DB Class 50. I happen to have old 3084 digitized, and am trying to replicate the archive train consist.

Thanks for those pictures!

I have a Class 50 which is underutilized at the moment, so that would make a good choice for me too!

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

I was silent throughout the week because I had nothing new to report on the boom car behavior. I didn't get any new information from the Stummi Forum, and haven't been in touch with Maerklin yet (I had another question with them that I need to take care of first, related to my CS2).

Interesting to read your observations regarding the boom pin and the unspooling of the cable - does that mean that the cable unspooled from being pulled repeatedly? I haven't dared to try that yet, because I was afraid of the consequences...

Thanks for sharing the pictures. As I had mentioned earlier, this website has pictures of the Ardelt crane:(and yes, in the spirit of full disclosure, the author of that website is a very good friend of mine from my German hometown ;-)

under the category "Kranwagen", you will find the whole gamut of cranes. It will give you many ideas how to arrange your crane train. For era 3 trains, most maintenance related cars in use by the DB will have been painted the same green as 2nd class coaches. In the Riedemann picture*, you will see that the "Donnerbuechse" passenger car has some windows covered. This is typical for maintenance cars, and you will repeatedly find that the model train companies will issue some modified cars for use in maintenance trains. Era 4 maintenance cars will be in the era 4 blue.

Donnerbuechse cars would be typical for era 3, blue "3-Achs-Umbauwagen" (three-axle-conversion cars) would be typical for era 4.

So, any green (=era 3) colored maintenance car will be suitable for your Ardelt train. When selecting locos for the train, select any shunting loco for the immediate work site, and any other goods-train loco for transporting the crane from location to location. You could make the crane and a limited number of support cars part of any long distance goods train.

The Ardelt crane could not move on its own. Modern cranes with their Diesel engines have limited capabilities to move by themselves at the worksite.

And finally, you will have seen the Swedish video of a similar crane on this forum?

One more operational observation on our Maerklin cranes that I wanted to share: The crane housing gets warm when the crane is powered and even if no other function is active. Thus, when the crane is parked on my layout, it is on an isolated, no-power bearing section of the track. I just don't want to risk the decoder.

Cheers,

Phascolartos

*(please note that under German copyright law you would be able to provide a link to the picture, but not the picture itself - sorry, the engineer with patent law experience had to speak)

Interesting to read your observations regarding the boom pin and the unspooling of the cable - does that mean that the cable unspooled from being pulled repeatedly? I haven't dared to try that yet, because I was afraid of the consequences...

One more operational observation on our Maerklin cranes that I wanted to share: The crane housing gets warm when the crane is powered and even if no other function is active. Thus, when the crane is parked on my layout, it is on an isolated, no-power bearing section of the track. I just don't want to risk the decoder.

No the cable is not supposed to get unspooled by repeat turns. In my case it happened because the boom cannot swivel smoothly on turns and the boom is pinned to the support, therefore the cable got pulled to compensate for that. As long as your boom swivels smoothly from left to right you should have no worries on the cable unspooled.

Before the crane went back to store, I operated the crane on and off on the layout for over 2 hours and I don't recall the crane housing getting warm but I didn't pay attention to that.

Thanks for your suggestions on crew car. I wonder if Marklin 46980 or 46982 would be a fitting crew car.

I did finally hear something back from one of the NA Märklin dudes (their designation) about the 49570 body motor speeds. It was just a punt basically because he had been in Utah for the big UP celebration. No doubt trying to sell $10,000 LGB train sets to a history crazed public.

He thought that the crane should have a switching speed (turtle) icon that would make it more controllable and he said that he would check. If it does have that feature it is not shown in the manual, so I am guessing that he was just, guessing.

He promised to get back to me though and if he does I will post what I learn. I am now wondering if you can remove the decoder and use Märklin's decoder programmer to add that feature to the factory installed decoder. Of course that decoder might be locked down to prevent that from happening, so we will just have to see how that all goes.

Still waiting on mine, which my dealer thought might happen sometime next month.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

I’m very interested in this thread as I’m still waiting for mine. You should be able to slow the turning speed by altering the C.V. Settings.This is the hilfsgerätewagon that I will be combining with the crane set.

Here is the only response that I have gotten so far, which was 8 days ago. I don't think that the switching speed option is there, although it would no doubt do what we want. I don't know if you could add that via some CV or not.

I will have to put mine on the rails in the next day or so, but I would expect that the "switching maneuver" (turtle icon) would make the boom swing slower. Saying this, I am not sure there is a "switching maneuver" icon though. I will have to see when I check it out.

Thanks

Rick Sinclair

Märklin Digital Consultant

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

The answer to your question whether the Maerklin 46980 / 46982 Gueterzugbegleitwagen (= Caboose) is a suitable crew car has to be a "yes, but". Both the 46980 / 82 are cabooses that would have the correct color and they are of the correct era. I myself use the "Behelfspersonenwagen" that you mentioned in your opening post as modified to serve as a caboose. Thus, era 3 and caboose would be a possible choice.

However, during era 3, the Bundesbahn was notoriously short of cabooses, and it would be unlikely that one of their rare caboose would have been modified for use as a maintenance / crane crew car.

The typical crew car would need to accommodate five to six persons that travel with the crane, usually for days at a time, and thus, they would be the living quarters for the crew with bunks, wash rooms, and kitchen facilities. Thus, these crew cars would usually be slightly larger than the 46980 /82 cars. A Donnerbuechse like you showed in your train photo would have been much more likely, because it would be large enough to house the described facilities. And this is where the MCi43 Behelfspersonenwagen comes in, because these were readily available in the 1950s for conversion. The crew cars that were modified would have been modified directly from the Behelfspersonenwagen just like the cabooses would have been converted directly from the passenger cars. So, my crew-car = caboose would look closer to the part (and this is probably why you asked in the first place), just the registration would be wrong.

Forum member "legless" suggested to use the esu Einheitshilfsgeraetewagen (EHB) 388 as a crane train car. The purist in me would recommend against that. "Einheitshilfsgeraetewagen" means "standardized incident response car". These are cars that would be stationed at major rail centers, and would be deployed in accidents. They have all the equipment (including first aid) that would allow to respond to accidents. For example, they'd have hydraulic salvage equipment to re-rail locomotives and cars (search the net for "Deutschlandgeraet, wikipedia.de is no help if you can't read German), cutting tools, torches, etc. There would always be a locomotive on standby for this car.

The EHB war painted green in era 3, yellow in era 4, and red in era 5/6. See

for photos. Interestingly enough, the EHBs were reconstructed by combining the bodies of two Behelfspersonenwagen MCi43, left over after WWII, and placing them on reusable old bogies.

For a crane crew car, the EHB would be too large, and our Ardelt 57t crane is not strong enough to lift a derailed steam engine, so it would not be used for your "typical" accident with a large derailed engine.

Were does all that leave us model railroaders? Maintenance support cars can be found regularly by most of the usual suspect manufacturers, as I had mentioned earlier. Try green painted box cars, the occasional Donnerbuechse, some will be modified as crew cars or cabooses, as well. Just nothing too modern - the Ardelt 57t crane was replaced soon, and there were only four of them if I remember correctly.

'hope my ramblings are of interest, remember that railroading should remain to be fun, "enjoy what suits you" is a phrase that comes to mind when someone becomes too serious in their response.

Legless: It is correct that cranes were sometimes used in pairs, but since there were only four of the Ardelt 57t cranes scattered throughout West-Germany, it is unlikely that they had been used together with the EHG incident response cars. If a crane was needed, the incident response car would already have been on site, and the crane with its own train consist would have been brought in as needed. Today, the era 6 DB has so few cranes, that they have to bring them through half of Germany when needed.

with some photos of the "smaller 25t brother" of our 57t crane and a link to a youtube sound-file of that 25t steam crane. It was recorded in 1979 during the replacement of a bridge by two cranes. You will hear a compressor throughout the whole recording, and the occasional sound of the 25t's steam engine. Of interest is that they combined the steam crane with a modern hydraulic crane (the yellow crane in the photos). In the 1980s, I twice watched the replacement of a bridge by two of the yellow cranes. These cranes can move by themselves, contrary to the Ardelt crane.

And I did some searching of the usual suspect websites for some suitable cars for a crane train. I did not check whether Reynaulds has the respective cars in stock, though:

This is a G10 box car, painted green as a maintenance tool car, although it is lettered as an era 4 car. These maintenance cars were still in green colors at the beginning of era 4, and even later would not have been painted in era 4 blue, because they would have been scrapped rather soon.

If I remember correctly, Reynaulds charges for replacing DC wheels against Maerklin AC wheels. However, especially with the somewhat challenging crane, you want the cars to be on their best behavior and not contribute to derailments (in which case you'll need the incident response car, although the salvage crane would already be on site ;-)

Update on steam crane: while dealer principal can respool the cable, he cannot fix the boom swing issue so he will exchange my steam crane with a new one from the next shipment.

I hope that is just a one off problem and not something that all of the cranes will have to deal with and that your replacement will work as expected. I assume that the Märklin digital dude could not find a solution to slowing down the motor speed since I have not heard anything more from him about that.

No word yet on mine but my dealer thought that they might get it sometime in June.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

Dealer will test the crane before handing over to me. From the few posters who own the crane, seems like mine is an one off but there are insufficient data points to validate that.

I have been reading about the 49570 on stummiforum to see a larger sample size.

One poster said that it is important to have all of the slack out of the cables when the boom is lowered so that the boom can pivot in curves. Someone else thought that when the boom is fully lowered it is more free to pivot to the side and that allows his to move as needed in curves. Someone showed how the support car was bent in his set, which caused problems and someone said that he could pull it without problems but had derailments when pushing it (boom forward I believe).

Several people complained about slow deliveries and wondered if Märklin is still trying to fix early problems before making more of them. There was one video posted showing it moving through a curve without any problem, so perhaps the newer ones will be OK. This is another time when I am glad that I always get my stuff so late because sometimes they have already fixed problems, like the window fit in the Insider 103 cabs.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

Although I don't read German I am aware of the guy who posted his bent support car. I look at mine and although it looks like bent, at closer examination I find the side panel is molded as trapezoidal form to give a look it is bent due to heavy use.

Still waiting for mine, and I learned that my Norwegian dealer har returned his shipment of 49750’s back to Märklin, because the whole shipment was faulty. :(

Nice.

I knew that I should not have fallen for the old Märklin pretty but flaky crane trick. I almost did with the previous crane but my dealer sold his last one to someone else. I did think that maybe I got lucky missing out on that model, but then I am not one to learn quickly. I ordered the 49570 anyway because it is so pretty and has such nice features. I have always been a sucker for a pretty face.

Now I hope that I don't get my 49570, at least not until they fix whatever is wrong with them. That way I can save the time, frustration and cost of sending it back. Just one more reason for my continued cutback on Märklin purchases -- my toy car has been very happy with the renewed attention.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

I knew that I should not have fallen for the old Märklin pretty but flaky crane trick. I almost did with the previous crane but my dealer sold his last one to someone else. I did think that maybe I got lucky missing out on that model, but then I am not one to learn quickly. I ordered the 49570 anyway because it is so pretty and has such nice features. I have always been a sucker for a pretty face.

Now I hope that I don't get my 49570, at least not until they fix whatever is wrong with them. That way I can save the time, frustration and cost of sending it back. Just one more reason for my continued cutback on Märklin purchases -- my toy car has been very happy with the renewed attention.

I do like cranes myself. (have several including 49950+49954.) And I did really fall for the 49570. I don’t have any issues with the goliath’s as long as I give them a bit extra wire slack in parking position.

If it is any consolation you will probably have your second crane before I get my first one. My dealer now expects it in mid July and I automatically add a month or two to their hopeful predictions.

Maybe the delay means mine might work properly when I do get it though and I would love to know what caused bph's dealer to send back his whole lot of them.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

Update on steam crane: while dealer principal can respool the cable, he cannot fix the boom swing issue so he will exchange my steam crane with a new one from the next shipment.

Update: I finally go the replacement steam crane last night. Dealer tested the crane before handing over to me. I test all functions this morning and it works. Of course, I check the boom swing which was well documented here and it looks smooth. Later I'll rest the boom on the flat car and give the cable some slack and see if it can negotiate R1 curves.

I push-pull the crane and flat car by hand around flat R2 and R1 ovals in both directions (clockwise and anti-clockwise), with some cable slack. I am glad to report in my case, the only time the flat car jumps track is when it is pushed from behind on a R1 clockwise curve, and this can sometimes be avoided if running at slow speed. In all other cases it runs smoothly. No problem running over turnouts and double slips in either direction. I can feel a slight variation in resistance when turning the boom pivot from center to left and right that causes the different behavior on clockwise and anti-clockwise turns, but this is manageable in my view.

So for those who have yet to take delivery, relax and no worries. And for those on the fence, go ahead and place your order now. You won't regret other than a (big) dent in the wallet.

I should restart the search for the wohn-schlafwagen and the kohle und wasserwagen now. Cheers.

So for those who have yet to take delivery, relax and no worries. And for those on the fence, go ahead and place your order now. You won't regret other than a (big) dent in the wallet.

I should restart the search for the wohn-schlafwagen and the kohle und wasserwagen now. Cheers.

Sebastian

Thanks Sebastian - it is reassuring to hear that! I finally have mine now but it has been a couple of weeks already and I have no idea right now when I can give it a go.

I can say that it looks just as beautiful as it did in the Märklin pictures and it is clearly a top contender on the layout for the most amazing model, as it should be for the cost.

A fully remote controllable and power operated crane has been a dream of mine since I was a kid - I can't wait to see what this beauty can do.

But first - so much to do as autumn approaches.

Regards,
Jim
I have almost all Märklin and mostly HO, although I do have a small number of Z gauge trains!
I have models from Era I to Era VI, but I try to focus on Eras I & III. Whoops, that one got away from me. Let's just say I focus on cool trains, regardless of the particulars :-)
So many trains and so little time.

After testing the crane, I start to take a look at the accessories. Just wonder if someone can shed some light on the following:

1. There is a counterweight part included in the package. Where am I supposed to store that part when the crane is not in operation? I recall I read somewhere the lower counterweight is stored in the crane chassis but I can't find a spot where it would fit. Anyone has idea?

2. Prototypically, is it correct to install the counterweight on the crane when not in use?

3. Has anyone put the counterweight on the crane during crane operation and does it help the weight balance?

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